middleman

we finally, FINALLY went strawberry picking. after missing our chance season after season, my mom and i stumbled upon a beautiful farm not fifteen minutes from our front porch steps. an older lady greeted us with bright red baskets and guided us to a few rows among the strawberry field. and then we knelt down--our knees resting on the soft dirt beneath us--and proceeded to pick one strawberry after another (with a little tasting in between i must admit) until our baskets were overflowing with juicy goodness. it felt so damn good to cut the middle man right out of the picture. we paid a mere 12.50 for all our loot (and that's my new hat by the way making a cameo appearance). as the lady was transferring our strawberries from basket to box, her son, who owns and farms the land, was talking with a gentlemen who had just driven up in his truck. the gentlemen wanted some strawberries, and the farmer replied, "i can just go pick a basket right here quick."

right here quick.

and then i watched him walk away, basket in hand, and my mind drifted...i considered his rugged jeans, tear in his t-shirt, and tan face with that wholesome grin and thought to myself, "could i ever marry this man?" yes, i actually asked myself that question. like could i imagine being happy for the rest of my life married to a farmer. could i? i don't know. maybe the strawberries just got to me. and the sun. yeah, it must've

been the sun.

but anyhow, i'll be seeing a lot more of the sun this weekend because i'll be in hilton head, south carolina, competing in a tournament. i'm (almost) all packed and ready to go meet the rest of the gang for the five-hour drive. bananas. peanut butter. sunglasses. towel. business suit (er, bathing suit). these items must always make it into the bag. and this weekend, i'm pretty sure some strawberries will be making it as well.

exposed

mom walked in on me while i was taking a shower. you know, to inform me that the water flow was making the pipes buffer--a fact we all knew already and were in the process of getting fixed. a fact she thought merited her advance past two protective thresholds (doors) and into the room containing the glass cubicle that contained my naked self. and then she lingered there while i proceeded to yell at her out of frustration and confusion.

so when i make my "things i will miss, things i will not miss list" about living at home, you can bet that this incident will fall under the "things i will not miss" column. because when you live with your parents, you always--and i mean always--live with that constant fear of one of them walking in on you.

why do you think i haven't taken a bath in over five years?

it's official.

even though she juggles a full-time job, school, a relationship, and the constant san francisco fog, my sister still finds the time to send me this in response to my anxiety about the big cali move:

best sister out there. it's official.

monday jewel

really? are you shitting me!?

i stumbled across an online article just the other day entitled, "moving back home with your parents is a good career move". i'm sure you can guess why the title attracted my attention. after reading it over once and letting the words sink in over the weekend, i pulled it up again to start the process of breaking it down so that i could share it with y'all. but then i became curious as to who had written the piece and where exactly it came from. one click later and i've discovered a blog called: penelope trunk's brazen careerist: advice at the intersection of work and life. interesting. then i read this little tidbit about penelope herself:

"i had a crisis in college when i realized that all entry-level jobs sucked, so i decided to play professional beach volleyball instead."

really? are you shitting me!?

not only did i feel an instant connection with this lady but also a yearning to find out her life story. how did she go about playing professional beach volleyball? and turn her column into a six-figure book deal? and create a successful blog?

what will it take to take this woman out for a coffee and pick her brain apart? perhaps that will never happen, but that won't stop me from trying. at the very least, i feel that her blog could be a good resource for me (and possibly you!). let the online stalking begin.

the birds and the bees

alright, i'm not referring to the birds and the bees...you know, as in the conversation that many parents have with their kids somewhere around adolescence. i'm only here to mention that in the course of one sunday evening i've heard my dad share several stories involving several different life forms. the massive spider that looked like a tarantula. the red blood spot and feathers left by the mourning dove that ran straight into my brother's window. the family of frogs down by the creek. and the piece of banana my dad left out for the red-spotted purple butterfly to sip on.

yep. that's my dad. he loves nature and nature loves him back. when i call his name and hear no answer, i know he's outside in the yard somewhere...gardening, pruning, or perhaps examining if a new tenant is occupying the bird-house. that's how it has always been, and even though i rarely have the time (er, patience) to match his enthusiasm while he retells his interactions with nature to me, i still wouldn't have it any other way. when you recognize that someone is clearly passionate about something and that they have chosen to share that passion with you it's invigorating. it's actually a very beautiful thing. a person just lights up from the inside out, and it seems that the most dangerous thing in the world would be for that light to be turned off.

hats off to those of you out there who relentlessly keep your lights on and glowing.

passionista...maybe this should be a new word

i had time to sit down and watch oprah yesterday, and i'm so glad i did! the segment, inside glamorous dream jobs, highlighted several men and women who are so passionate and connected to their line of work it's inspiring. i was especially excited to see the "cake boss" featured as one of her guests because his show on the food network is one of my favorite guilty pleasures :)

the-little-blog-that-could

while i was more into reading the adventures of peter rabbit as a child, my older brother was dreamy about the little engine that could. this classic children's story taught the values of hard work and optimism by way of a little blue engine that--by definition--could! when other engines were unwilling to help pull a long train over difficult terrain to reach it's destination, in came the little blue engine who was willing to try the impossible task--all the while repeating the mantra "i think i can, i think i can". what you end up with is a heartwarming, inspirational tale about simply trying in the face of your obstacles and never giving up.

what triggered these childhood memories was an article i came across in the news & observer entitled, "web viewers warm up to frozen food show". the article spotlights a working father who has turned his video blog, freezerburns.com, into a site that attracts about 55,000 people monthly. when he started the site a year and a half ago, he says he didn't know whether anyone would want to watch his online video reviews of frozen food. well, people do, and now he has major food companies like kraft and conagra shipping him complimentary boxes of frozen food. maybe he will have a television show in the future...who knows. but what i do know is that this story gives me hope that perhaps one day theboomeranger could attract such an audience. i would be lying if i said that my aim wasn't to reach more people through this blog and bring more attention towards the hilarious and dysfunctional life of the modern-day boomeranger.

the article is dead-on when it says that the-little-blog-that-could is one of those internet dreams: "take a hobby, write about it online, get admiring followers, attract advertisers, and dump the 9-to-5 routine." it goes on to say that the success of even a few (stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, the new york foodie who cooked her way through julia child's mastering the art of french cooking) can keep the dream alive.

well, my dream is very much alive, but i still struggle with making my site stand out among millions and connecting with readers who are going through the same shit i am. i guess those are my obstacles.

i think i can, i think i can.

a movie and a message

the other night i was reunited with a friend--who we'll call "stacy"--who just recently returned from chile. she is also a boomeranger. she graduated in may of 2009 (as i did) and is the daughter of one of my parents closest friends here in carolina. over the course of our college years, we were always the token "daughters"...kicking it with the older crowd during school breaks and over the summer. for instance, we watched the ball drop in 2008 amidst board games, booze, and married couples. it was one of the best new years i've had.

so we met up at her parent's house (where else?) and caught up on eachother's lives. stacy gave me a taste of the risotto that she had cooked for her and her dad as i filled her in on my plan to move to california. she, in turn, explained how she was adjusting from life in chile, where the people around her shared her same passions and age, to living at home, where the people around her once shared diaper duty. when you compare what stacy and i have been doing since entering the "real world" you can clearly see that we took different turns. since graduation she has been in ten countries--studying, learning, and volunteering along the way. as for myself, i've managed to embark on my own exploration--networking within and outside of the beach volleyball circuit--while staying under one roof (well, technically it's been two roofs).

as we both near that one-year benchmark since college, we find ourselves asking some of the same questions. stacy will be attending graduate school in london in march of next year, but she's wrestling with the idea of either moving to another city or staying put for the interim. i'm leaving for california in less than a month for the duration of the summer, but what's greeting me at the other end is one large ? do i freak out because i honestly can't say what i will be doing and where i will be doing it when summer is over? does stacy pull her hair out while trying to decide where to live or work before she attends school again? do we treat these decisions as "the most important decisions of our lives!?"

i had brought over a movie for stacy and i to watch that i've been meaning to check out for months now. the movie, post grad, follows a fresh college graduate (over-confident, entitled, peppy) who wastes no time in going after her dream job. she doesn't get her dream job (shocker!) and instead hits the classified section of the newspaper hard as she tries to cope with her massive expectation hangover. her deflated sense of pride and complete lack of awareness of the family and friends around her prompts one to wonder what her priorities are. completely engrossed in what the future holds, she loses sight of everything comprising her present life. stacy and i both agreed that the movie was rather unrealistic and not a great representation of the real struggle and comedy that surrounds the boomeranger lifestyle (i wish the writers would have come to us first before finalizing their script). anyhow, despite the fact that the movie morphed into a love story rather than an insightful examination into post-graduate life, the two of us could agree on these underlying messages that the film conveyed:

living in the future leads to abandonment of the present.

and...

half of life is what you do. the other half is the people you're doing it with.

just let those words sink in for a bit. or a while.

"i wonder if everyone's paper has poop on it"

that's what my mom said as we were finishing up our breakfast this morning.

let's rewind.

mom, dad, daughter, and son all went out for breakfast at a nearby cafe to celebrate dad's birthday. we pile up in the car and head down our driveway. five minutes later--i joke, but we really do have a noticeably long driveway--my dad steps out of the car to grab the newspaper. all is fine and dandy until a few minutes later when he realizes that he has some kind of black stuff on his hands and along his pant leg. then he realizes that the same residue is all over the plastic sleeve that covers the paper. remarkably, he manages to not harp on the annoyance any longer.

that is, until two more minutes go by and he declares matter-of-factly, "this is cow shit". yep. happy birthday dad, and here's some cow shit to go along with it...free of charge! he reckoned that the newspaper delivery person must live on some kind of farm where manure had found it's way (yes, manure has legs) into his vehicle and onto our morning paper. that lead my mom to wonder if everyone's paper had poop on it. just another one of life's unanswered questions...

"an emotional outburst of ill humor or a fit of bad temper"

now, i could talk about how i just made a whopping twenty dollars at work and how i will be returning shortly for a second-- and hopefully just as rewarding--shift. or i could talk about how my mom and i were up until 1 a.m. last night picking my ford focus up from the tower and trying to find the goddamn place in the process. i could talk about how amazingly stupid. irresponsible. and a little embarrassing it is that i have gotten towed twice in the last three months. or i could just direct my rage against others, like the pudgy, bearded tow-truck man who took my one-hundred dollars in cash, or my former manager who had my car towed. you heard me correctly... i parked my car in my previous employer's lot and confirmed later (with the tow-truck guy of course) that a previous manager of mine had indeed made the call. absolutely hilarious, right? so i could divulge on all the things that have made my first twenty-four hours since returning to carolina memorable.

or wait, did i already talk about all that? did i just throw a little virtual tantrum? my bad. totally unintentional. won't happen again.

i'm also a liar.

on the downhill

it's raining on fillmore street in san francisco. not buckets. not sprinkles. just somewhere in-between. and i'm glad i'm nestled in a cozy corner of a hip cafe instead of out there in that rain. it's just me, my sister, our two mac laptops, and forty-five of our closest friends.

alright, complete strangers.

anyhow, we've polished off our oatmeal, eggs florentine, and side of fruit and are just casually kickin' it before we venture downtown to flash some bills at lululemon and join her friend to shop for engagement rings.

it's going to be a rough afternoon, as you can tell.

to update you, my california trip is now on the downhill--meaning i have crossed the half-way marker and am thus dangerously close to hopping on a plane once again. i'll have a lot to muddle over on that red-eye flight...for one thing, my friend from high school is now a wife. she has a "mrs." in front of her name. she threw a bouquet. she said "i do". holy shit.

there are several important conversations that must take place this upcoming week, including the one where i tell my manager that i will be leaving the restaurant in a month. all the conversations (and questions) revolve around my summer plans. it's freaking me out. will i drive my car to california or leave it in north carolina? will we find a decent place to live? will i be able to manage rent, food, gas, and other basic yet essential costs? what about health insurance....dental insurance...car insurance? what it basically boils down to is the classic scenario where you have "kid" confronting "parent" about "money". and you know what the shittiest part of all this is?

tax day: april 15th.

and you wonder why i'm freaking out.

memory lane

i’m in that rare yet familiar mood again. a mood where the fast pace of life seems to slow down just for me. the kind of mood where i let myself indulge in an almond croissant with nutella as a side dish without feeling any of the guilt. the kind of mood that provokes me to jot down intriguing tidbits i come across in magazines, like the international sweets & bisquits tour, for future reference—you know, in case i find myself in sweden for the next event. but hey, that’s just how optimistic i am when i’m in this mood. maybe you, too, find yourself in this uplifting, calm, “i can do anything” state of mind sometimes?

well, for your sake, i hope you do experience it, because it feels fantastic. having left all my obligations and household tension back in north carolina probably triggered it. how could i not feel good when the person picking me up from the san fransisco airport is my sister? and did i mention her new car has heated passenger seats? and how about the fact that today kicks off my reunion with some of my favorite people in this world?

i think i’ll take a stroll down university avenue…my old stomping grounds. past the pizza joint on the corner where an invitation on a friday night would peg you as one of the popular kids. past the starbucks where my friends and i would go during high school breaks (i felt so cool walking around with my off-campus purchased beverage)…past the borders bookstore where i had my very first “job” wrapping people’s christmas presents. everyone has their memory lane.

easter recap

this is what greeted me easter morning:

(boomeranging has its perks!)

this is what i left on the kitchen table for my parents and brother to find:

. . .

this is the dialogue i had with my mom when i inquired about the above:

"mom, what did you think of the eggs?"

"oh, thank you! yes, we got the cookie you left and the...hard-boiled eggs...thank you!"

okay, so we all realize that i don't have the financial capacity to pull off an elaborate easter brunch for my family or anything like that, but to think that they thought i had just removed three eggs from the fridge and placed them in a bowl as my grand easter gesture is just sickening. those were premium belgium chocolate eggs! i paid good money (2.50 a piece) for them!

just took it a step too far i guess. or maybe i

should've left an explicit note explaining why it

was vital that they all cook eggs for breakfast.

the all-mighty boob

currently sitting in a comfy starbucks chair in terminal b of the charlotte airport. i've got a pretty sweet two and a half-hour layover. checked my messages when i got off the plane and was surprised to hear that rocky had called. yah, i don't know a rocky, and a rocky surely doesn't know me (and probably never will). he really wanted to get in touch with me though, which made me THIS CLOSE to doing the decent thing by calling him back to inform him that he has the wrong number. i was THIS CLOSE.

whenever i'm flying solo and my mom is with me to see me off, she always says to me "you know, honey, if anything looks funny, you don't have to get on the flight." i always respond with a nod, but this time i decided to play dumb...

"like, how would i know if something looked suspicious, mom?"

"well, they are training women now--women doctors--to perform breast implants and put bombs in those implants. so- "

"so, any woman with a b-cup or higher. got it."

"if you see anyone touching or adjusting their breasts--"

"mom, thank you for supplying me with material for my blog today."

oh man was that priceless...she just started laughing, then a little more nervously as she contemplated others being able to experience her sage advice. "i feel like it is my duty to tell you these things for your own protection! it was on fox news!" she says.

i nod.

so i definitely underestimated how burnt out i would feel from the past few days i have had, particularly over the weekend. that said, our little chat will have to wait until tomorrow.

happy easter...

...and happy one hundred!

that's right folks, this is my one-hundreth post since i started this blog in june of last year. seeing as i just realized that this is the big one hundred, and that i have only eleven minutes left before i have to return to work (i know...working on easter sunday), i have nothing mind-blowing to offer you. your socks will not be knocked off...unless, of course, you find that paying nearly four dollars for a blended iced latte is nothing short of astonishing. but i think you are used to over-priced coffee by now.

i'm just here to duck-in and duck-out..and perhaps toot my horn a bit for sticking with my writing for this long :) it really is a challenge for me and i have my readers to thank.

when i get off work tonight i will definitely write number 101 because i do have a few things to say before i fly to california for the wedding. and don't worry...nothing of what i have to say involves my dog shitting down the driveway.